BEACON OF HOPE
Kelvin Sampson and UH deserve shot in March spotlight.
Hope is returning.
Normal still isn’t normal. The sports world still mirrors our real world: uneven, disjointed and randomly distant.
But the hard freeze has thawed, refreshing glimpses of green are already shooting through the decay, and hope is returning.
Kelvin Sampson captures that hope.
The country’s ninth-ranked men’s basketball team captures that hope.
And the return of Madness in March will soon be our clearest proof to date that normal can again be normal one day.
“We don’t know how the season is going to end,” Sampson said Friday during yet another Zoom media interview. “We do know that we’re going to be in the NCAA Tournament, and that’s always a huge accomplishment. Even though you may be a program that goes every year, you never lose sight of how hard it is to make it.”
The seventh-year University of Houston coach was discussing his seniors, Memphis and the regular-season conclusion of the second consecutive college basketball campaign that has helped redefine our contemporary definition of unprecedented.
But, as always, the consistently big-picture Sampson was saying more.
The Cougars couldn’t end their 2019-20 season the right way because no one could. Less than a week away from the one-year anniversary of the NCAA Tournament’s cancellation on March 12, 2020 — a then-controversial decision that now looks simple and safe — UH is on the verge of carrying Houston sports for weeks.
The Texans’ biggest decision during free agency will be whether they finally answer the phone to discuss Deshaun Watson’s NFL future.
The Rockets entered the NBA’s All-Star break dragged down by a numbing 13-game losing streak. The biggest decision of their season was finally trading former franchise face James Harden. The biggest game of their first half centered around Harden’s return to Toyota Center and a Brooklyn Nets blowout victory.
The 2021 Astros aren’t that far away. But they aren’t scheduled to play a real game in downtown Houston until April 8, and it’s hard to get excited about spring training in sunny Florida when every baseball conversation still takes place with a Zoom filter.
Sampson’s Coogs will receive the bright lights, big headlines and local TV highlights for as long as they stay on the court.
Just like in 2018 and ’19.
As they should have in 2020, before March Madness was erased and the craziest year in decades tipped off.
A 20-3 record and No. 5 peak in February highlight Sampson’s coaching expertise. But he spent part of his media interview praising UH trainer John Houston and devoted medical workers, while detailing an internal notification system that said it all.
A phone call meant that someone had tested positive for the coronavirus. A text message meant everyone was negative.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever had daily stress like this, because of the testing protocols,” Sampson said. “The biggest pressure that I felt this year was the hours following the COVID tests, because you’re at mercy of the results.”
The players and names keep changing, especially the last two seasons. But UH basketball has been in the middle of the national conversation (again) since 2018-19, when Sampson went 33-4 with Corey Davis, Armoni Brooks, Galen Robinson Jr. and Nate Hinton.
The Coogs are 103-23 and counting under Sampson since the 2017-18 season. They have finished 21st, 11th and 22nd in the country, and this No. 9 crew could be Sampson’s most dangerous UH team in the Madness.
Since his April 2014 hire, Sampson has outlasted Harden in Houston, turned UH back into a basketball school — after Tom Herman took the football program to 13-1 and a powerful Peach Bowl victory in 2015 — and built a player-driven culture that annually produces tough, selfless teams.
You come to UH to win big.
And play modern basketball the right way.
“Most coaches fail because they have poor player leadership. And they take responsibility for that because those are the kids they recruited,” Sampson said. “You can point fingers all you want. The teams that play to their ability level and are consistently good — programs that are consistently good every year — have great player leadership.”
Bright, warm sunshine was everywhere Saturday. Spring is almost here. So is March Madness.
The national stage that Sampson and his Coogs lost in 2020 will be theirs again in 2021.
They deserve the delayed spotlight.
They can remind us what hope and optimism — in the sports and real world — feel like.